The Mermaid set was born of my first drafts of The Jane Variations. I was working with stretch laces and the idea of gazing through layers. The appearance of lace that floated over nakedness. And while the idea was good, the execution in all skin colours is more fraught. If you can’t be universal to your client’s tones – wait until you can source the fabrics. In the meantime lobby until they are more available. The alternative was to experiment with non-skin-tones.
I have a container of “miss” fabrics (or WTF did I buy that for?) I use for experiments and toiles. I live in England and while Goldhawk Road and Berwick Street are amazing, you speculate with your purchases rather than plan first. Some fabrics are staples, but lingerie fabrics are nearly always short runs. The bolt goes, that’s it. As a small creator, I buy 10m at a time. When those purchases come from online, you can never be 100% sure of the colour, fabric content, or quality. In the test example above, the red lace is a good colour and colourfast, 4 way stretch, but cheap quality. Not couture. So, 10ms in the “miss” box.
I dove into the WTF box and I find this great quality stretch lace which is not soft leaf, but LIME GREEN. A lilac purple powermesh that did not match the purple silk it was intended for. I also keep ends of spools of elastics that just might be long enough for one piece. Apart from the fact that they are garish, together, they still are gawd awful but it a cool way if you squint at the notions sideways.
Below is a short video on how I cut out the lace which is useful if you have never worked free hand like this before.
All the froufraphrah is a thing I love to do… #remakereuserecyclce. From the first image, I cut apart one lace and added 3d roses from a strip of tulle and then Schwartzi crystals
1 Genuine Schwartzi crystals are holographic film backed GLASS. Stop being so impressed by an eBay purchase that costs PENNIES to make and sells for £s by adding two 0s.